The shimmer of the thistle-drift adown the silences;
The gliding of the fairy-fire between the swamp and trees:
All qualified her presence as a sorrow may a dream—
The vague suggestion of a self; the glimmer of a gleam;
The actual and unreal of the things that are and seem.
Where once she came with welcome and glad eyes, all loving-wise,
She passed, and gave no greeting that my heart could recognize,
With far, set face, unseeing, and sad, unremembering eyes.
It was beneath a waning moon when woods were bleak and sear,
And winds made whispers of the leaves that eddied far and near,